1. Field of the invention
The invention pertains to an apparatus for flipping articles. In particular, the invention relates to an apparatus for flipping articles from a stream of such articles so that the articles can be transported to a manufacturing process after having been flipped over at least 180.degree. from an initial position within the stream. The invention is particularly useful in manufacturing food articles, such as cookie sandwiches, and the like, wherein it is necessary to flip every other cookie in a stream of cookies released from a baking process so that an automatic cookie process can easily manufacture cookie sandwiches.
2. Prior Art
In the preparation of food articles such as cookies, candies, and the like, after the cookies have been baked, they are transferred from an oven to an infeed conveyor belt in a stream-like manner so as to be conveyed thereby to a processing station. Where the process is for making cookie sandwiches, a filling station is required to deposit a cookie filling substance, such as cream, onto every other cookie in the stream. It was the prior practice in the baking industry to manually remove an untilled cookie from the conveyor belt and place it on the cookie having the filling substance deposited thereon. Obviously, such practice is rather labor-intensive and time consuming.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,194,443 to Mims, the inventor of the present invention, discloses a successfully automated process of producing cookie sandwiches. The patented system, known as the COOKIE CAPPER.TM. sandwich system, automatically transfers cakes or cookies from the oven's supply conveyor belt to an infeed belt of the system. The system then alternately flips every other row of cakes or cookies 42 by allowing the article to drop from the infeed conveyor belt 20 to a second conveyor belt 24 while flipping over by 180.degree. to land on its reverse surface, as shown in FIG. 3A. Cookies (T) that are to be placed on the top of the sandwich are allowed to slide down a planar surface 72 to the second conveyor without being flipped over, as shown in FIG. 3B. The disclosed system transfers the rows of cookies, equally spaced by a distance "P," to a depositing station where a filling substance is deposited onto every other row of cookies, corresponding to the flipped rows of cookies (B). A capper station, located further downstream of the second conveyor, lifts the cookies serving as the top of the sandwich and places them onto the filling substance.
The COOKIE CAPPER.TM. sandwich system, however, has no control over the manner in which the cookie bottom B is flipped from the infeed conveyor belt. As the speed of the infeed belt is increased the cookie bottom B is projected a distance "d" farther from the edge of the belt 20 onto the second conveyor belt 24, as shown in FIG. 4. On the other hand, the cookie top T, which is allowed to slide from the infeed belt 20 to the second belt 24, is not projected the same distance "d." Thus, the spacing between the cookie top T and cookie bottom B becomes irregular, and thus inhibits the system from increasing its throughput.